Harare, Zimbabwe — The cold winter season is almost over and the hot summer season, often dry and windy, is fast approaching.

During this season, weather experts strongly advise people against starting fires as the chances of these fires getting out of hand are extremely high.

Every year during this season, various Government agents, including the Environment Management Authority and the police, launch massive nationwide campaigns against veld fires.

But these seem to have failed to achieve the desired results if the number of fires started so far this year and the destruction caused is anything to go by.

According to the EMA, at least 4 000 hectares of vegetation were destroyed by veld fires over the past three months countrywide.

A considerable number of animals were also killed while timber plantations and pastures were destroyed.

The agency also estimates that property worth over $10 billion was lost more than a week ago when fire destroyed plantations in the Eastern Highlands.

On Tuesday, we reported that 83 000 kilogrammes of cotton worth $2 billion stuffed in bales were destroyed by a veld fire at a depot in Raffingora, Mashonaland West Province.

In another incident, fire destroyed the Shona Village at the Great Zimbabwe National Museum in Masvingo at the weekend.

And today we report that 35 hectares of seed maize were burnt in Mhangura, also in Mashonaland West.

These incidents are just a tip of the iceberg. Veld fires continue to rage throughout the countryside this time of the year. The tragedy is that lives have been lost.

EMA spends billions of dollars every year educating people on the dangers of veld fires, but it would seem the agency still has a big task on its hands.

We, therefore, feel that apart from educating the public about the dangers of veld fires, those caught on the wrong side of the law should be given deterrent fines or sentences by the courts.

This is why we welcome the imposition of such deterrent fines for those convicted of starting wild fires.

We also welcome the move by EMA to clear road verges along the country’s main highways. It is suspected that smoking motorists who discard cigarette stubs onto the grass verges causes some of the fires.

The stiffer penalties and clearing road verges are, however, only part of the solution. There is need for both the EMA and police to strictly enforce the Forestry Act and the Ecosystems Protection Regulations of 2007 so that every farmer, whether commercial or communal, has a fireguard around his property.

More fire-fighters also need to be trained and equipped to fight veld fires.

It takes months and years for flora and fauna to grow and the role these play in the ecosystem is too important to be destroyed in a few hours with the strike of a matchstick.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) – Smoke and ash from a massive wildfire in Santa Barbara County is causing potential health problems in three counties.

Smog officials say pollution from the fire could create unhealthful air from Ventura to northern Los Angeles County, 50 miles from the flames. Yesterday, heavy ash fell in Ojai, 22 miles away.

The fire that began on July Fourth has burned more than 268 square miles in Los Padres National Forest. It increased by 16,000 acres last night and all that brush going up in smoke has sent plumes of pollution skyward.

Crews also have set backfires ahead of the fire to deprive it of fuel. The blaze is 65% contained and has cost nearly $79 million to fight.

Australia — Biosecurity concerns and the loss of apiary sites has made some beekeepers uncertain of their future.

The drought and last year’s bushfires ravaged hundreds of hectares of public land, and many of Victoria’s best honey-producing forests and woodlands will take years to recover, leaving some beekeepers struggling to keep up with industry demand.

While the honey industry itself is worth only $60 million to the Australian economy annually, bee pollination services indirectly contribute billions of dollars to the agricultural and horticultural sectors.

Federal member for Corio Gavan O’Connor, who is part of a House of Representatives agriculture committee inquiry into the bee industry, said there were several problems facing Geelong’s handful of commercial beekeepers.

“The broad gamut of the inquiry relates to its role in agriculture, the usual trade issues, biosecurity issues, the impact of land management, the research and development needs of the industry, its training needs, its future,” Mr O’Connor said.

“I think the local beekeepers have raised important issues relating to land and general resources and security issues, and I will be meeting with them in the coming weeks.”

Mount Duneed apiarist John Edmonds, owner of Edmonds Honey, said he was concerned about several issues, including the problem of how to fill US bee demand after the collapse of the American bee industry.

“They’ve gone from about five million hives because of pests and disease down to about a million colonies, and as a result they’ve got problems,” he said.

“There are a few beekeepers in Albury that have been close enough to truck bees up to Sydney (to travel to the US). The problem for us is that the planes leave from Sydney to Los Angeles, so we need freight planes leaving from here going straight to Los Angeles. It’s a big opportunity for Australia.”

Mr Edmonds said US hives were rife with varroa mites, a highly destructive bee parasite that had yet to reach Australia.

Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Peter McGuaran last month announced a funding boost of more than $390,000 towards a new alliance to manage industry research into the varroa virus.

“Varroa mite is an external parasite of bees and is the biggest pest facing the honeybee industry and reliant horticultural industries around the world,” Mr McGuaran said.

Mr Edmonds, who lost a third of one his sites to last year’s bushfires, said Parks Victoria had reclaimed 10 of his Anglesea sites without replacing them in kind, as he expected.

“I also lost a truckload of bees in the Brisbane Ranges . . . the sad part of that is that some of that area was burned so badly that it will take 30 years to get a honey crop like in the past,” he said. “I’m never going to see a bee site again there in my lifetime.”

“That fire, there’s a lot of crews working on mop up in that area and they’ve also put in a lot of containment lines. They’ve done some burn-off and back-burns and it’s just been going very well for them. The weather has certainly been helping us out on the fire and other fires.

The Springer Creek fire near Slocan and Silverton hasn’t grown, but spotting to the east now puts it at 2850 hectares.

Tel Aviv, Israel — With all the attention devoted to green cars, solar energy and the greenhouse effect, it has been somewhat forgotten that the main environmental threat impacting most Israelis directly is the loss of nature and landscapes. It is a process taking place almost daily where bulldozers bury a final sand dune or churn up another swath of natural woodland to make way for a road or destroy a winter reservoir in favor of a shopping center.

The significance of this loss and the difficulty in correcting it are underscored in one of the saddest and most beautiful books published this year – the 50th anniversary edition of photographer Peter Merom’s “Song of a Dying Lake,” reissued by the Defense Ministry. The book of black and white photographs, with texts edited by Yedidya Peles, documents the glory of Lake Hula, and its loss.

Lake Hula – its southern section a lake, its northern section large swamps – was drained in the 1950s in the interest of agricultural development. The drainage operation was carried out without conducting a comprehensive study of its ecological, environmental and emotional ramifications. Draining the lake later proved problematic for agricultural development as well: it caused fires on peat lands, sent ground pollutants flowing into Lake Kinneret, generated dust storms, and led to the spread of weeds and voles that damage crops. Neglect by farmers, because of assorted difficulties, exacerbated thesituation.

Numerous scientists have depicted the lake’s animal life and vegetation, which was far richer than those in the Kinneret. Merom describes this in his photographs, and the notes he made with Peles: “In the springtime the lake would transform. It would flood cultivated fields along its shore, cover them with fertile silt, and recede. The sun would come out and ripen the sediment-enriched cereals and corn. The water fowl would come and claim: This patch is ours, and the coastal birds would counter: It belongs to us.”

Merom and Peles describe the draining and destruction of the lake with heartbreaking resignation. The photos document plants shriveling up and dying, the carcass of a terrapin and birds desperately in search of water. “Death got most of them – the desert offers no escape,” the book says. “Cracked, parched earth cried out, as the lake’s millions of creatures died with their mouths gaping open.”

Merom thanked the lake for the days of its youth, and bid it farewell. Today the Israel Nature and Parks Authority takes pride in the Hula reserve, a remnant of the original lake salvaged by the founders of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, led by the late zoologist Prof. Heinrich Mendelssohn (a fact INPA neglected to mention at the visitors center there). The Jewish National Fund maintains the adjacent Lake Agmon – an area of the original lake that was reflooded last decade.

These are undoubtedly important nature sites, but they cannot take the place of more extensive ecological preservation activities, that would bring back to life a substantial part of the lake. Lake Hula can be further rehabilitated by flooding additional lands, which would restore at least part of the lost beauty. One of the ideas previously suggested by landscape designer Motti Kaplan, and rejected, was to restore the original state of a swampy northern region and partially reconstructed lake in the southern region.

Several scientists recommended in the past linking up the springs surrounding the Hula Valley with the areas to be reflooded, as well as to deliver better-quality water to the nature reserve. Continuing to rehabilitate Lake Hula would make partial amends for the tragedy Merom depicted, and befits the statement appearing on the final page of his book: “Once upon a time there was a lake, its story is over now, but not done with.”

As pleasure boaters and vacationers on the northwest shore of Lake Tahoe watched anxiously, firefighters seemingly managed to control a fast-moving wildfire Saturday evening before it could become another Sierra Nevada conflagration.

The fire broke out at a Sunnyside home, just south of Tahoe City, about 1:30 p.m. The home, on Washoe Way, was fully engulfed by the time fire crews arrived. The fire spread to four nearby homes and another structure.

Fanned by 25 mph winds, the fire moved north from the homes and into the Lake Tahoe Basin National Forest, burning almost 15 acres, according to U.S. Forest Service spokesman Rex Norman.

“We are under extraordinary fire danger because of the very dry conditions resulting from a mild winter,” he said.

Guests at the Granlibakken Conference Center just south of Tahoe City had half an hour to grab their belongings and evacuate the smoke-choked resort on the northwest shore of Lake Tahoe on Saturday afternoon. They were among hundreds of residents forced to evacuate.

Granlibakken receptionist Sarah Burke hustled to ensure that all of the hotel’s 158 guests had rides to Tahoe City, where a Red Cross evacuation center had been set up at the Fairway Community Center.

“It’s pretty bad right now, pretty smoky,” said Burke. “We just have to get out of the area.”

By 9 p.m. some people were allowed back into the evacuated areas, including Granlibakken, but some neighborhoods remained off-limits overnight, said Placer County Office of Emergency Services spokeswoman Anita Yoder.

Firefighters expected to have the fire contained by 10 p.m.

Because the blaze was accessible by paved roads, fire crews from the North Tahoe Fire Protection District and the forest service were able to respond quickly, Norman said. Twenty engines were on the scene, as well as three helicopters, three tanker planes and an aerial reconnaissance plane.

Erika Rothschild of Nevada City watched from her boat.

“It just kept growing and growing and growing,” said Rothschild, who summers on the lake.

Plumes of smoke could be seen from across the lake at Harvey’s Casino in Nevada.

Jeff Oxandaboure, general manager of the Sunnyside Restaurant & Lodge, said the fire started four blocks north of his business, which remained open. “Fire danger is immense right now in Tahoe. It’s going to remain that way through the fall.”

The response to the fire was rapid, said Leigh Rozvar, owner of the Sunnyside Market. Within half an hour of the fire’s start, there were numerous agencies on the scene, he said, including helicopters that dumped water from the lake into the fire.

“I’m really impressed,” said Rozvar, 71, a former fire chief with the volunteer Alpine Meadows Fire Department. Rozvar said the quick, organized reaction appeared to be a result of extensive planning after the recent blazes in South Lake Tahoe. “They had helicopters on this so fast. If they’re successful, it’s a result of that event that happened in South Lake Tahoe.

“From what I see, they’re doing a heck of a job.”

Norman said the fast response was standard procedure, though he added: “We’ve had some recent practice.”

The blaze is about 20 miles north of South Lake Tahoe, where a wildfire that began June 24 destroyed 254 homes and charred more than 3,000 acres. It took firefighters eight days to contain the fire, at a cost of $12.1 million.

Highway 89’s southbound lane was closed through the fire area but reopened by 9 p.m., according to the California Highway Patrol.

Honolulu, HI, USA — A stubborn brush fire on Oahus North Shore has forced the closure of two Waianae High School and Makaha Elementary School in Waianae tomorrow.

Smoke from the fire was drifting over the Waianae Mountains and settling in Makaha Valley.

Students at Waianae High School were released from classes early today, and parents of students at Makaha Elementary School were told they could pick up their children early. The Department of Education decided to close the schools tomorrow, a spokesman said.

The out-of-control blaze has covered 7.8 square miles since it began Sunday off Kamehameha Highway near the road to Helemano Military Reservation.

Twenty companies of firefighters worked to keep the fire from spreading over the mountains.

The blaze spread onto Army property this morning, but housing areas at Schofield Barracks werent in danger, military officials said.

The fire was generating dense smoke and ash, and could cause an increase in dust by exposing large areas of ground, state health officials said. They urged nearby residents with respiratory or chronic breathing problems to take precautionary measures or to even leave the area.

People need to realize the environment we live in is a fire-adapted ecosystem, said the U.S. Forest Service’s Northern Region deputy director of fire, aviation and air. We need to live with the expectation that fire will be part of life here.

Ponderosa pine’s thick bark evolved to ward off frequent low-intensity wildfires. The cones from lodgepole pines remain closed for years waiting for the heat from a stand replacement fire to restart their natural cycle. A whole host of different forbes and shrubs thrive in the years following a wildfire.

It’s been that way since the beginning.

For almost a century, people looked at wildfire as something to be fought. And for decades, it seemed as though man held the upper hand. Short of a few unusually dry years here and there, firefighters found a way to keep wildfire at bay.

Of course, Mother Nature was lending a helping hand. For 50 years starting in the 1930s, the western United States enjoyed a pattern of unusually wet weather.

For a lot of us, that’s our frame of reference, Weldon said. We draw on that perspective when we decide what’s normal, when actually the climate change we’re seeing now may be closer to normal for this area in terms of precipitation and temperature.

Those conditions have a dramatic influence on this fire-dependent environment, he said.

The days when firefighters could make a stand and put out every blaze are gone.

Years ago, we could overpower fire when and where we wanted to, he said. That’s not possible any more.

In the record dry conditions facing firefighters this year, when a fire gets started in places packed with dense tinder-dry timber, there’s no way to stop it.

It doesn’t matter how many resources you throw up against it, Weldon said. It won’t be effective. If that fire moves into an area where the timber isn’t as thick or a place where a fire has previously burned through, firefighters might have a chance.

There are a variety of ways to create those openings in the canopy. Thinning the forest mechanically is one way. Using fire is another.

Fire as a tool to manage the forest isn’t a new idea.

Back in 1972, the Forest Service authorized its first experiment allowing fire to work its restorative magic in the backcountry of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. The lightning-caused Bad Luck fire was the first time wildfire was allowed to burn naturally under an approved wilderness management plan.

Since then, thousands of acres in both the Selway-Bitterroot and adjoining Frank Church River of No Return wildernesses have burned. The result is a vegetative mosaic where naturally occurring fires perform a function that’s occurred for millennia.

In 2005, there were 45 wilderness fires in the two areas.

Some were large, some were small, said West Fork District Ranger Dave Campbell said. They were burning in all types of forest. There was ground fire doing its thing through stands of ponderosa pine � backing fires that looked like the best prescribed fire you could ask for.

Two or three blew up that same year into stand replacement fires that swept through as much as 15,000 acres.

This year, while small fires blow up overnight into infernos that threaten life and limb, about 20 wildfires are burning in the two wilderness areas. While the Forest Service keeps a close eye on their progress, there’s no effort to put them out.

This is a place where fire has a chance to perform its natural process across the landscape, Campbell said. These fires might burn rapidly one day through some thick timber, only to slow the next after burning into an area that’s already been burned over.

Last week, as one fire burned close the 600-foot-wide Macgruder Corridor Road, visitors were allowed to continue their travels through the heart of this huge wilderness area under the watchful eyes of Forest Service fire crews.

Fire has become an integral part of the wilderness experience.

Wildfire in wilderness is a wild event, Campbell said. To put a fire out in the wilderness makes this place somewhat less wild. � For many people, it’s an incredible experience to see wildfire burning in a wilderness setting.

Of course, there’s others who don’t want to get anywhere near it, he said. It’s all about expectations. Everybody’s is different.

It’s easier to let a fire burn when you have millions of acres as a buffer.

The Frank Church/River of No Return Wilderness covers more than 2.3 million acres. On the other side of the Magruder Corridor, lies the 1.3-million-acre Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.

It’s large enough to enable us to manage it with fire more easily than smaller areas, Campbell said. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done elsewhere.

The Forest Service and other public land managers are looking for opportunities to safely put fire back on the landscape in a program it calls wildland fire use. Drawing on experience gained from years of observing wildfire in places like the Selway-Bitterroot, officials are allowing fire do its work in carefully selected areas around the region.

We started having success in the ’70s and ’80s with wildland fire and began expanding the program to other places, including areas outside of wilderness that made sense, Weldon said. We have the option of using wildland fire use on about 25 percent of national forest lands in this region.

When a fire occurs in areas designated as potentially ripe for a wildland fire, managers quickly consider a variety of factors, including location, the fire’s potential to threaten infrastructure, and weather.

Often, the decision will come to send in initial attack crews to quell the blaze. But when the situation appears right, the fire will be allowed to burn.

This is not a let it burn policy, Weldon said. We manage these fires to the best of our ability. There’s always risk, but there’s also risk of not doing anything.

There are about 50 wildland use fires burning right now in Montana and northern Idaho. So far, those fires have burned through about 55,000 acres.

As of Friday, wildfires in the Northern Region have burned about 711,000 acres. The region includes Montana, northern Idaho and North Dakota.

Weldon doesn’t look at a fire season as good or bad.

It just is.

Since we live in a fire-adapted ecosystem, it’s impossible to stop that natural process from occurring, he said. It’s neither good nor bad. It’s how the process works.

People need to understand the ecosystem we live in. We’re not going to be able to eliminate tornadoes. We’re not going to be able to eliminate hurricanes. And we’re not going to eliminate fire.

There are management opportunities for mechanically reducing fuels in strategic places, but considering the scale of the challenge facing public land managers, Weldon said, the whole tool box has to be open.

Restoring fire back to the landscape is an important tool.

There are 25 million acres of national forest lands in the Northern Region alone, he said. Mechanical treatment at that scale is just not possible.

And so unless the weather patterns change again and bring buckets full of rain and dump huge mounds of snow, smoke is likely to mark the end of summer for some time to come.

Canada is offering to send trained fire crews and specialized aircraft to Greece to help battle massive fire that have killed at least 63 people since Friday.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Bernier said in a statement Tuesday Canada would respond after Greek authorities appealed to the international community for assistance.

Canada has identified available resources, including air tankers and water bombers, as well as trained fire crews. The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre would oversee the effort.

“Canada is working closely with the government of Greece to identify how we can best help meet the needs they have identified and mitigate any further impact of this devastating situation,” the minister said.

Tony Pantieras, president of the Hellenic Community Council in Ottawa, was pleased to hear of Canada’s commitment.

“We’re very proud to have Canada contribute to the relief effort and rescue effort. At this point things are very serious,” said Pantieras, who is busy contacting family members and Greek-Canadians who are on vacation now in Greece.

“Hopefully everything will be contained in the near future with all this help from not only Canada, but other surrounding countries and other G8 countries,” said Pantieras.

The village of Matesi on the southern Peloponnesian peninsula has been the area worst hit by the blaze. Tuesday, firefighters were struggling to douse as many as 25 fires as strong winds fanned the flames.

Many have criticized Greece’s government this week for its weak response to the fires.

Greece’s conservative government said it would hunt down arsonists it believes are responsible for the fire, offering rewards of up to $1 million. Authorities have already arrested seven people in connection with the fires.

But opposition socialists say Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis is attempting to deflect criticism ahead of the parliamentary election in three weeks.